In a swift move to contain the political fallout from its very bad decision to block text messages from NARAL Pro-Choice America, Verizon Wireless has reversed itself by fixing "the process that led to this isolated incident."
In a statement posted on Verizon's Poliblog, company executive Jeffrey Nelson said that the decision to block the message on "an important, though sensitive, public policy issue" was based on an "incorrect interpretation of a dusty internal policy."
"We have great respect for this free flow of ideas and will continue to protect the ability to communicate broadly through our messaging service," Nelson added.
The quick decision to step away from a political landmine is a shrewd move on the part of Verizon Wireless and clearly smarter heads prevailed at the company (Nelson said that "senior Verizon Wireless executives immediately reviewed the decision"). Still, the "isolated incident" and "dusty internal policy" excuses will give cold comfort to those people (I'm not one of them, btw, but Verizon really scared me this time) who already fear that the absence of some kind of common carriage requirements will lead to corporate censorship of important ideas.
Cynthia Brumfield at 12:56 PM|Comments(0)
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